


We Can Be All Poetic

by VideoGameImagines



Category: The Last of Us, The Last of Us: Left Behind - Fandom
Genre: DLC, F/F, Gen, Left Behind - Freeform, Reader-Insert, reader - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 01:26:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6174805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VideoGameImagines/pseuds/VideoGameImagines
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt Request: an Ellie X Reader story from The Last of Us: Left Behind DLC. Essentially it is the Left Behind story in which Ellie and the reader are best friends and they live out the events of the DLC with of course my own twists.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Can Be All Poetic

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Hello everybody! Thank you so much for your patience while I finished my next request. This prompt was given to me by paradise-is-perfection and it was a request for an Ellie X Reader story from The Last of Us: Left Behind DLC. Essentially it is the Left Behind story in which Ellie and the reader are best friends and they live out the events of the DLC with of course my own twists. Warnings: Language! Seriously though, please excuse my French. This will contain spoilers for the Left Behind DLC and people are going to die so you have been warned angst ahead! Disclaimer: I do not own The Last of Us or Left Behind. As always I hope I did the prompt justice and I hope you all enjoy the story!

It was a warm summer night in Boston and you were making your way past the guards of your old boarding school; not that it was exactly difficult because the guards were changing rotations and they never really paid too much attention anyway. Honestly unless you were an infected anyone with a brainstem could sneak past these idiots but hey at this moment you were grateful for their ignorance. You made your way to the fifth floor and found your old room, just before you turned the doorknob you were hit with a wave of nostalgia from the good ole days. Well maybe calling them the good ole days was a bit of a stretch considering you were living out your life in a literal apocalyptic situation where there was never really a chance for you to be an actual kid. Your parents tried to give you the best life they could but they were both a part of the military and one day they went missing on a mission with their battalion and ever since then you’d been living at this military boarding school. It was a pretty miserable place with military drills every morning at the crack of dawn, awful school lessons during the day, and literally no time to just cut loose. But this miserable place was also where you met your best friend and partner in crime, Ellie. Ellie became your roommate when she arrived at the boarding school a year after you did and you two were inseparable from the moment you met. So to say that you hated every moment that you spent at this boarding school would be a lie because had you never come to this school you and Ellie would have never met. With Ellie things seemed to be a little bit brighter and you two always found a way to sneak out and find adventures of your own.  
In this moment however, you weren’t sure how Ellie would take your appearance because right before you left to join the fireflies you and Ellie had a fight. It wasn’t like you meant to hurt her but Marlene was adamant that Ellie couldn’t join the Fireflies even though you desperately wanted to take Ellie with you; Marlene just wouldn’t budge. So when you snuck back into the boarding school to get your things Ellie was of course waiting for you and full of questions regarding your whereabouts. You knew that Ellie wouldn’t let you go if you told her that you were joining the fireflies, hell she would probably follow you if you tried to sneak away. So you decided that the best way to make sure Ellie didn’t follow you and that she stayed safe was if you made her believe that you didn’t want to see her again. It all devolved into a shouting match between the two of you and you told yourself it was for the best but a part of you was hurt that she believed it so easily. That was a little over a month ago and you always thought about coming back to see Ellie one more time but under very different circumstances. Marlene wanted you to move to a different city with the fireflies so you had to leave Boson and you couldn’t leave Boston without seeing your best friend one more time. You took in a shaky breath and turned the doorknob quietly trying to make as little noise as possible.  
To your credit you made into your old room without waking Ellie from her slumber but seriously the girl could sleep through anything. You had to wake her up somehow and you hoped the idea you had wouldn’t get you into too much trouble with her. You carefully slid your backpack off of your shoulders and gently placed it on the ground before climbing onto the bed and hovering over Ellie. Your intention was to be an innocent prank, so you let out a fake hiss and pretending to bite Ellie’s exposed neck. Your plan was a success in regards to waking Ellie up because she flung you off of her effectively slamming you to the floor while she defensively reached for the pocket knife under her pillow. You began to giggle because her reaction and bewildered reaction to your appearance was honestly priceless. She squinted at you, the pocket knife still creating a barrier between the two of you, “Y/N?”  
You let out a playful groan, “Owww, I fell on my hip!”  
Ellie was still bewildered, “Y/N, what the fuck are you doing here? God I thought I was bitten. It’s been I don’t even know how long since I last saw you.”  
You pulled yourself up off the floor, “It’s been 45 days well technically 46 days since I left. Don’t you want to know what I’ve been up to?”  
Ellie wasn’t having any of it she was still in shock, “All of this time… Y/N I thought you were dead.”  
Shit! You knew that the fight hurt her but living with the thought that someone you cared for is possibly dead or dying; shit yeah that was awful. You were at a loss for words, “Yeah…..” After a rather lengthy pause you suddenly remembered why you were here. You pulled off the pendant that was hanging around your neck and held it out to Ellie, “Hey check it out.”  
While Ellie was looking at the pendant you snooped around your old room and found a photograph of the two of you together. You remember the day It was taken; it was right after your first escape from the boarding school. You were surprised that Ellie had kept the picture even after your fight. Ellie let out sigh, “No way! Y/N, you’re a Firefly?”  
You smiled shyly, “Yeah I am… so come on get dressed I’ve got a surprise for you. Then I’ll tell you how I became a Firefly.”  
Ellie looked at you and fiddled with her hands, “Look Y/N, you can’t just come back here after what you did and expect everything to be ok. Besides I have military drills in the morning. You know the ones where they teach us how to kill Fireflies.”  
You sighed she was still upset and had a damn good reason to be, “Ellie, just come with me and let me explain myself let me make it up to you. Please?”  
Ellie finally sighed and started putting on her jeans, “I’m so stupid for going along with this.”  
You picked up your backpack and opened the door, “Ellie, when have we ever gotten into trouble?”  
You and Ellie were making your way across the rooftops toward the abandoned mall, dodging the new guard rotation and it was going well so far. Ellie suddenly spoke up, “So how did you up finding the Fireflies and joining them?”  
You laughed at the memory, “Do you remember that Firefly that you bit and stole his gun? Well his name is Trevor and one day I didn’t feel like sitting through class so I snuck out and wouldn’t you know it, I saw him walking down the street. So I decided to follow him but when I did I was ambushed by the Fireflies and they took me straight to Marlene. I was terrified that she was going to kill me right then and there but instead she asked me what took so long. She was expecting me like it was some kind of test. Then I started going on missions and here we are.”  
Ellie sounded amazed, “Hey maybe I could join the Fireflies with you!”  
You sighed, “Yeah I asked her about letting you join but she said that it was a no and she told me that she made a promise to your mom, to keep you safe,”  
Soon you two made it to the abandoned mall and dropped down through the hole in the roof you turned to Ellie, “Do you remember the first time I brought you here?”  
Ellie just scoffed at you, “Y/N, what exactly are we doing here?”  
You laughed, “I have a surprise for you. Come on just follow me, okay?” Unfortunately for you the path that you wanted to take was blocked so you had to find an alternate route. On the bright side there just happened to be an open window above the door of an old shop. You turned to Ellie, “Hey Ellie! Can you give a boost so I can get through the window up there?” She obliged and when you saw what was inside the shop you were overjoyed.  
You found a bunch of hilarious masks and decided to have some fun by pulling on a creepy clown mask. You heard Ellie calling your name so you quickly unlocked the door and hid from sight. When Ellie was close enough you jumped out and scarred the living daylights out of her.  
She shrieked, “What the hell, Y/N! Why are you wearing that thing?”  
You were laughing hysterically, “Oh man, I got you good! Come on I found the perfect mask for you to wear. See?”  
She rolled her eyes at you when she saw the mask, “What is that supposed to be some sort of wolf man?”  
You laughed through your own mask, “Just put it on, C’mon! Sweet now roar!”  
She gave a halfhearted growl and you sighed, “Ellie, seriously? Come on fucking roar!” And when she did you were ecstatic, “Yes! There she is!”  
You and Ellie explored the Halloween shop until you came upon this weird magic eight ball called Skeleseer so you picked it up and explained how it worked to Ellie. You sarcastically asked, “Will Ellie ever be as funny as me?”  
Ellie immediately objected the question, “Oh please I am like ten times funnier than you, Y/N!”  
You grinned and looked down at the answer, “Well Skeleseer says, ‘Not in this existence’ you heard him.”  
Ellie dryly replied, “Well… Skeleseer can suck my dick.”  
After exploring a little more, you and Ellie left the shop and found a bunch of bricks on the floor and to cars on the ground floor and it gave you an idea. You looked at Ellie, “Hey let’s have a little competition to see who can smash all of the windows on their car first, using these bricks.”  
Ellie giggled, “Oh you are going down, Y/N!” And with that the two of you were off but you had the superior aim and ended up winning by a slim margin.  
You cheered in triumph, “Yes I am totally the brick master! Now come on we need to head to the generator room, now follow me.”  
You an Ellie made small talk as you made your way down to the generator room where you flipped the generator on turning on the mall’s internal lights and power. Before you opened the double doors Ellie stopped you, “Y/N wait, I know what you’re trying to do and I’m really glad you’re not dead. What I mean is I’m really glad we’re together again.”  
You had been hoping this whole time that she might say that and give you the opportunity to get things off your chest. So you looked at her, “I didn’t mean it… I didn’t mean all those things I said right before I left.”  
Ellie smiled at you, “You know Y/N… you are such a sap sometimes!”  
You just rolled your eyes at her, “Yeah well you started it. Now, are you ready for this?”  
She tapped her foot impatiently, “Yes come on let’s go… Whoa! This is amazing, Y/N! Wait won’t the soldiers see the mall all lit up like this?”  
You led Ellie over to the Carousel, “Nope the exterior lights are busted so they won’t see a thing. Now go get on one of the horses and I’ll turn the ride on for you.” Ellie suddenly seemed overly excited and made a mad dash for the first carousel horse she saw. You turned the ride on and watched her wave at you and giggle as the ride continued to rotate. Suddenly yelled out for you to join her but just as you hopped on the horse adjacent to hers the ride slowly stopped. Your shoulders sagged in defeat, “Oh come on I just got on!”  
Ellie turned to you and smiled, “Well I loved it, so there.”  
Which reminded you of something you pulled out a small book from your backpack and began to read, “What did the triangle say to the circle?”  
Ellie gasped and grew excited, “What is that?”  
You smiled at her enthusiasm, “You’re so pointless!”  
Ellie’s was now smiling from ear to ear, “Fuck you! You found another pun book?” Without another word you handed the book to Ellie. The smile was still plastered to her face, “You know you might just be my favorite person again. Just saying.”  
You hopped off the carousel and walked away calling over your shoulder, “Well I know my girl just saying!”  
Ellie couldn’t help herself and began to read, “Diarrhea is hereditary… it runs in your genes. That is gross but also awesome thanks for getting me this, Y/N.”  
On your way to your surprise you found a photo booth and at Ellie’s insistence you stopped to take some photos but unfortunately the printer was busted. To make up for it you took Ellie to the arcade upstairs. She was super exited at the prospect of playing a video game but it too was busted but you didn’t want her to leave completely disappointed. So you told her to close her eyes and you talked her through a fighting game scenario while she pictured it in her mind.  
As you were leaving Ellie stopped you, “Hey, Y/N I should really be heading back because I don’t have any more strikes left at this school. Tomorrow we can just pick up where we left off.”  
Your face suddenly fell this wasn’t the conversation you wanted to be having, “I can’t the Fireflies want me to leave tomorrow. They want me to leave Boston and join another group in a different city. Listen I begged them to reconsider but Marlene was insistent.”  
Ellie looked like a kick puppy, “Okay…”  
You were flabbergasted, “That’s it? That’s all you have to say to me? How about some friendly advice?”  
Now Ellie looked pissed, “Friendly advice? Ok here’s my friendly advice…Go! Come on let’s just say our goodbyes.”  
You were heartbroken you knew that you left for a while but here your best friend was standing there telling you that she basically didn’t care if she ever saw you again. You just shook your head and turned on your heel, “You know what I’m going to go find out where that music was coming from.” When you left you heard Ellie calling out your name but you didn’t care you just kept walking until you found the moving display that was playing the music you heard from the arcade. Until you heard Ellie coming up behind you so you tried to ease the tension, “Have you ever seen anything like this before?”  
Ellie sounded irritated and threw her arms out, “What are we just done talking?”  
It seemed that your deflection failed so you snapped back, “I don’t know are we?”  
Ellie stormed towards you, “You know what I’m the one who gets to be angry not you! This whole day happened because what you what felt guilty? A month ago we were perfectly fine and then you just told me to fuck off and you disappeared.”  
Now you were angry how could she think that you did this because you felt guilty, “You know what I’m not supposed to even be here! If I get caught as a Firefly in this part of town then I’m dead. It was so much more than guilt that made me put my neck on the line. I did and said things that I wish I could take but I am trying to fix this. I even got you these.”  
You threw you backpack at Ellie and she opened it up to find the two water guns that she wanted so badly. She picked up the water guns and handed one to you, “Okay first I am going to ass and then maybe we’ll talk.”  
You smiled at her impishly and an epic water gun fight ensued in which Ellie was inevitably victorious but you made a valiant effort. You were both soaked but laughing hysterically by the end of it. Ellie sobered up a little bit when you asked for a rematch and insisted that she needed to get back. You knew she was right this night couldn’t last forever so you sighed, “Can I at least walk you home?”  
Ellie smiled at you, “Yeah I guess you can. Let’s get our stuff.” You both retrieved you bags and you insisted that Ellie keep them because it’s not like they were going to be any use to you where you were going. Ellie suddenly stopped you, “I know that I said it like an asshole before but you should go with the Fireflies. I know I’m going to be completely miserable without you but I can’t stop you from leaving.”  
Well she was wrong about that and you looked at your feet, “You’re actually the only one who could probably stop me from leaving.” You looked over to your left and noticed some stereos. You turned back toward Ellie and asked her if she still had the Walkman that you gave her and when she gave it to you plugged it and turned up the music. You smiled when the tape that you had given her months ago started playing and you jumped on the display case beginning to dance. You beckoned her over, “Come on, Ellie! Get over here and dance with me.”  
You both started dancing wildly and laughing your heads off when Ellie slowly stooped and looked at you. She looked heartbroken to say the least, “Please don’t go, Y/N.”  
In that moment you forgot about the Fireflies and the idea of leaving Boston because everything you ever wanted was standing right in front of you. You ripped off your Firefly tag and dropped it on the ground. Suddenly Ellie pressed her lips to yours, “I’m sorry.”  
You were a little surprised sure but it felt right in that moment, “I’m not…” And then you heard it the deafening screeching of infected you and Ellie pulled out your weapons and began to run. You shot a few of the approaching infected and screamed, “We need to get to the second floor, now! There is a bunch of scaffolding there that leads to an open window.”  
The two of you were making a mad dash for the second floor jumping over obstacles and jumping on top of trucks to quickly get to the old scaffolding. You quickly scurried up the scaffolding with Ellie close on your heels. But then the worst happened when Ellie was climbing up the last bit of the scaffolding it began to fall over and you tried to grab her but it all happened too quickly.  
Ellie fell to the floor and an infected was on her in the blink of an eye, “Ellie, hold on!” You jumped back off the scaffolding and shot the infected that was grappling with her but you dropped you guard and another infected tackled you to the floor where you made the biggest mistake of your life. You reached to push the infected off you but you let your guard down and you felt something bite down on your left hand.  
Ellie jumped onto the back of the infected and cut its throat open looking around she sighed, “I think it’s clear.”  
You numbly looked up at Ellie’s right arm and you felt bile rise in your throat, “Ellie…your arm…”  
She looked down and began furiously rubbing away the blood on her own bite mark that must have occurred during the fight. “No, no, no, no, no, no! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”  
She looked at you and you held up your hand showing her the bit that you received. Ellie sat down next to you, “They I see it, we have two options. Option one we take the easy way out it’ll be quick and painless but I’m not really a fan of option one. Option two is we fight….”  
Ellie looked to be on the verge of tears, “Fight? Fight for what? We’re going to turn into one of those things.”  
You turned to her, “We fight for every minute we have left together. There were a million ways we could have died so far and there are a million ways that we could die by tomorrow. But we keep fighting for the time we have left. Hell, we could be all poetic and shit and just lose our minds together.”  
Ellie just looked at you weakly, “And what’s option three?”  
You stood up and held your hand out to her, “Come on let’s get out of this place.”  
You made it to a house not too far from the Firefly camp where you had been working with Marlene. Your entire body ached almost as if you were burning alive, your bite mark looked sickeningly inflamed, and you were just so tired. You wanted to keep walking but the infection was spreading quicker and you knew your end was drawing near and you were just so tired. Ellie was sitting next you as you lay down on the floor and tried to relax. There was something you needed to discuss with Ellie before you turned because she wasn’t turning and there was still hope for her. You looked up at her tear streaked face, “Look Ellie, you need to leave quickly when I start to turn I won’t be able to hold back and I could kill you. There is a building 5 miles away the door is marked with three lines of black paint Marlene will be there with some of the Fireflies. Tell her what happened and show her the bite she will protect you.”-  
Ellie began sobbing, “No… Y/N I can’t leave you here. Remember you said we could be all poetic and lose our minds together, you promised. Y/N, please I’m still waiting for my turn…”  
You tried to bite back your tears and smile, “Ellie, I don’t think you’re getting a turn… The only other option is for you to kill me when I turn and I don’t like that option. I can’t put you through that. So take my handgun and go when it’s time.”  
Ellie nodded and took the handgun from you, “I’m so sorry, Y/N…”  
You weakly laughed, “I’m not there are a million ways that I could have died today and I’m happy that I got to be with the person I care for most in the world when it happens. And it’s even better because I know that you’ll be okay. That’s pretty damn poetic if you ask me.” Ellie was still sobbing when you spoke up again, “Hey Ellie do you think you could sing something for me before you go?”  
Ellie gave you a trembling smile, “Yeah there is this song my mom used to sing to me when she was still with me, I could try that.” Ellie wiped her eyes and began to stroke your hair, “Baby I've been here before… I've seen this room and I've walked this floor… I used to live alone before I knew you…I've seen your flag on the marble arch… and love is not a victory march…It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah…..Hallelujah…Hallelujah….Hallelujah….Hallelujah…”  
With that last phrase you were breathing slowly too slowly and you heard Ellie sobbing uncontrollably but you just couldn’t move. You wanted to comfort her but your body was just too heavy. You heard Ellie get up gently and make her way outside of the building. Even though you were turning you weren’t scared but rather glad that Ellie still had a chance. That’s more than anyone could hope to have.


End file.
